Gasoline (or petrol), as well as diesel fuel and other fuels, have excise tax imposed on them in various jurisdictions including countries such as Australia, Israel, New Zealand and the United States. This excise tax is sometimes used to raise funds to support transportation infrastructure and the cost of cleaning the environment from pollution caused by consumption of the fuel. Some users of the fuel may receive tax refunds for providing a report of fuel usage. Accordingly, employers and owners of company vehicle fleets may need continuous reporting of the fuel usage of the vehicle fleet for accounting purposes as well as to monitor the proper use and/or condition of the vehicles.
Tracking fuel consumption of a vehicle by measuring the amounts of fuel that are dispensed at filling stations is a common practice. Fuel dispensers at the stations are equipped with meters to measure the dispensed fuel. The dispensers commonly require the vehicle's driver to provide identification means related to the vehicle and/or driver, and to provide documentation of fuel refilling amounts that essentially correspond to fuel usage by the vehicle. However, monitoring only at filling stations does not provide any data between fillings during which some fuel may be stolen or otherwise fraudulently withdrawn.
Furthermore, in some situations station-based monitoring may not be applicable, for example when a vehicle is used in a remote location, such as a tractor in a large field or building site, where taking the vehicle to a filling station is not practicable. In such contexts, a large fuel tank may be provided near the remote location from which the vehicle may refill. Such situations may be even more vulnerable to fuel tampering yet harder to monitor.
There is therefore a need for a method and system to improve the accuracy of the reporting of fuel consumption by a vehicle and to prevent tampering with fuel consumption reporting.